Getting Familiar with Mizzou Network
The Columbia Missourian‘s Zach Miller provided a must-read detailed explanation of today’s upcoming launch of Mizzou Network, a rebranding of existing online sports content provider Mizzou All-Access. Miller quoted associate athletic director Andrew Grinch, who said the university realized it needed to do a better job of providing online content to fans:
"“Looking at peers from other places around the country, we felt we were a little behind from a day-to-day video content standpoint,” Grinch said. “Our fans were in a position where I felt they had to go elsewhere to get some of that Mizzou content, and ultimately we want them to come to us.”"
The Mizzou Network will show multiple historic MU football games, and Grinch told Miller the athletic department would try to add four or five more historic games each month. Additionally, the athletic department is pushing its online content with help through CBS Sports and a new mobile application.
"On Tuesday, the department introduced the Mizzou Tiger Sports application, a version of the department’s website compatible with tablets and mobile devices.Both the app and the Mizzou Network are being produced with CBS Interactive, the Web host for MUTigers.com and many other collegiate athletic sites.When videos are posted on the Mizzou Network they will immediately become available on the CBS sports mobile app.The relationship with CBS also allows content from MUTigers.com to be pushed to outlets such as Yahoo, YouTube and MSN through the CBS Audience Network."
It is nice to see the university reaching out to provide content to fans, but the CBS partnership creates potential conflict of interest issues. While not as big of a deal as with the monolithic partnership between ESPN and Texas’ Longhorn Network, partnerships between universities and media outlets aren’t getting as much scrutiny as they deserve. By launching an app or a TV network with a school, the network then has a vested interest in the school’s athletic success, because a better program means more people are interested in the school.
Such a relationship then creates ethical questions: if CBS is partnered with Missouri and comes across information that would have a negative impact on one of MU’s sports teams, can viewers trust CBS to publish the information? Whether such a circumstance ever arises or not is immaterial; the mere appearance of potential impropriety is undesirable.
http://www.mutigers.com/allaccess/